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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbia-Montenegro still faced with problem of refugees and displaced persons

Belgrade/Skopje, 17 October 2005

At a seminar on the problem of refugees and displaced persons, which is being held in Skopje, Head of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija Sanda Raskovic-Ivic said that Serbia-Montenegro is still faced with a large number of refugees and displaced persons, while at the same time international humanitarian organisations have considerably reduced their donations.

Sanda Raskovic-Ivic

Author: Beta

In Serbia-Montenegro, there are more than 370,000 refugees and displaced persons from Kosovo-Metohija and the issue of determining their permanent status is so immense that it obstructs the overall reform and transition processes in Serbia-Montenegro, Raskovic-Ivic pointed out.

According to Raskovic-Ivic, Serbia-Montenegro therefore still needs humanitarian aid and financial support of the international community.

She warned that an additional problem for the region arose in the wake of the outburst of violence on March 17, 2004, carried out by ethnic-Albanian extremists. There are records of over 20,000 new refugees and displaced non-Albanians, mostly Kosovo Serbs, banished from Kosovo-Metohija since March 2004.

The seminar in Skopje is being held within a presidential session of the Stability Pact Parliamentary Troika and centres on the issues of refugees and displaced persons in southeast Europe.

Apart from Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, speakers at the seminar will be Doris Pack, Chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with the countries of Southeast Europe, Krzysztof Ners, Vice-governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank, Petra Blass, representative of the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe, Catherine Walker, representative of the UNHCR Office in Skopje, Thomas Birath, Head of the Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative Centre (MARRI), Enrico Ponziani, Chief of mission at the International Organisation for Migration’s Pristina and Skopje offices, and Wolfgang Grossruck, Rapporteur of the First General Committee of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).